This is one of the most interesting releases of the year, for me. It'll be a chance to see if making enough noise makes a difference. Will Universal do the right thing, or is QL officially a wash on DVD?

I understand why people want full uncut versions of TV shows with original music.

But isn't it better to get something than nothing at all?

And if people refuse to buy a dvd set because it doesn't have the right music or it's been cut, then all the studios know is that it doesn't sell so what's the point of putting out more. They may think that bad DVD sales shows that people aren't interested in the show.

Hey I'm not saying I wouldn't prefer to get full versions and I think that company's who are putting these things out should do everything they can to put out uncut versions with original music.

But lets take the case of Make Room for Daddy. I have never seen this show but I've seen an occasional clip, and loving old tv sitcoms and being a Dick Van Dyke fan, I would guess that I would really enjoy this show.

But the only DVD is a fifth season with cut scenes. And because it hasn't sold well due to the cut scenes, they are unlikely to put out any other DVD's.

So people may never see this show.

And if a show like Quantum Leap can't get the original music released why not replace the music so we can at least enjoy the show? Is the original background music really important when what I really want to see Sam deal with being pregnant, mentally retarded, or African American? The show is about Sam going through time and entering people's bodies and lives, not about what theme music is playing in the background.

I understand it's frustrating to not get an exact product, but what if getting the exact product would push the costs so high that few people could afford it and studios would lose money and therefore not do it?

There were 6 months from S1 (6/8/04) to S2 (12/14/04), and now 5 months until S3 streets on 5/10/05. S3 had to be in the works before S2 streeted and the complaints hit about music replacement.

In my mind, there is NO WAY there was enough time for Uni to hit the brakes on the S3 release and get the music back into it after the complaints started hitting. So unless they had planned on original music for S3 all along (hard to believe in light of the S2 decision and time between releases), then I think it's a lost cause, fellas.

If a show's music is replaced in as shoddy a manner as it was with QL: S2, then yeah . . . they might as well not put it out as far as I'm concerned. For those who don't care, it's great, I guess.

Probably to the annoyance of many, this thread will probably become a carbon copy of the big season 2 thread until we get more solid information. Might as well start it off with a fresh link to the list of omitted music:

As I've said ad nauseum, that's too big a list of dropped music for my tastes. And, though we've all debated the reasons for the replacements, Universal has gone on record only with the "we wanted to keep the momentum going and get the sets out quickly" excuse.

Edit: I'm glad to see I'm interpreting the Universal interview in the same way you are, David. I wish everyone on either side of the issue would at least consider whether they want to reward Universal for rushing a product that could have been done correctly.

And, in case there are those following this thread who didn't follow the other, I'll go on record as one who is NOT blanket boycotting Universal. They have a lot of great TV shows I want, and I'll support them when they do them right. The thing that makes the QL:S2 situation so hard to take is that they did such a great job with all of their intial TV releases. I was praising them up and down, and now I have to take a cautious approach to their releases.

I'll just say that when some old film has lost elements, and it's put together as well as it can be, even if it's incomplete, such as the reconstructed Lost Horizon which had to use still photos over a soundtrack for portions of the film that were gone forever, that I fully understand and applaud the effort.

But when companies are just too damned cheap to get the full uncut episodes which are available, then that's a no-sale, no matter what for me. You can say that my not buying it may send them the wrong message, but I could say the same about you purchasing it. How do you know the message you're sending isn't "hey, we'll buy your product no matter how much you alter it, so go ahead and do slipshod work on future shows, we'll keep buying it".

One of the big reasons that I am so happy that WKRP in Cincinnati has never been released, is that at least I can hold out hope that maybe someday, they'll be able to afford the music and we'll get to see it. If they released it with music replacement, then that would be it, and I wouldn't buy it, and I'd know there'd never be a chance of them redoing it right.

"Movies should be like amusement parks. People should go to them to have fun." - Billy Wilder

"Subtitles good. Hollywood bad." - Tarzan, Sight & Sound 2012 voter.

"My films are not slices of life, they are pieces of cake." - Alfred Hitchcock"My great humility is just one of the many reasons that I...

Well, I've said I would buy S3 if it was correct, even though I hate to have a gap. But, in the unlikely scenario that S3 had replaced music and S4 was correct, it would be too late. This is their one shot to get QL right, or I'm out.

Paul, that'll be the second big test for Universal. Will Miami Vice S2 have replaced music? I strongly doubt it, but we'll see. As someone pointed out, the entire first season of MV was apparently already available on home video, so the rights clearances might date back to those releases. If S2 is virgin territory, we'll get a real picture of how Universal is operating.